Camden Crawl 2011 – Miles Kane, The Mighty Boosh And The Return Of Razorlight

Thousands of people descended on London over the weekend, merrily waving their drinks in the air, cheering as they got a chance to get up close to their idols and celebrating the four day weekend.

Were they there for the Royal Wedding? To support Will and Kate and buy their commemorative tea-cosies? Er, no. There were there, of course, to drink cider and watch a load of ace bands at Camden Crawl – which hit its tenth birthday this year. With more than 200 acts playing across 44 venues, the likes of Dananananaykroyd, Miles Kane and Odd Future hit the capital and kicked off 2011’s festival season.

First stop on Saturday, we sat in the sunshine on the Black Cap roof terrace to talk to some of the bands. We caught up with two of the lovely lads from Dananananaykroyd and chatted about trying to finish their new album before Christmas so their girlfriends would still be talking to them. Plus they explained how they put together their aerobic new video. The Scottish six-piece later kicked off their headline show at the Jazz Cafe by dishing out hugs to the audience, before playing tracks from their new record ‘There Is A Way’, including ‘Reboot’ and ‘E Numbers’.

Check out the video for Dananananaykroyd’s ‘Muscle Memory’.

Miles Kane performed a storming set of his new solo material at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town – including ‘Come Closer’ and ‘Inhaler’, which are both taken from his forthcoming debut album ‘The Colour Of The Trap’. He spoke to us before the show and told us about Noel Gallagher helping him out with the record when he popped round for a coffee. Plus he revealed whether he would be playing any Last Shadow Puppets tracks this summer.

Hawk Eyes, previously known as Chickenhawk, played The Underworld – a suitably rock ‘n’ roll venue for the metallers from Leeds. We caught up with guitarist Rob before the show to find out how work on their new album is going, how to get boo-ed by Alexisonfire fans and whether they’ll be letting NME photographer Danny North direct their next video.

“Who’s up for a good old Camden Crawl sing-a-long then?” Frankie shouts to the audience as the dapper-dressed Sunderland singer and his Heartstrings launch into their 2009 single ‘Hunger’ in the HMV Forum. Before the show we spoke about taking on Lady Gaga in the charts and there’s even a chance of an inter-band kiss…

We also caught up with Rich Fulcher, AKA The Mighty Boosh’s Bob Fossil. Um, what more can we say? An interview with this man needs no introduction, but he tells us whether there’s going to be a Mighty Boosh film, whether the Boosh is going to come back and what Bob Fossil will be wearing.

On the Sunday, our day was mostly spent watching some of the best rappers on the scene at the moment. Ghostpoet and Giggs both packed out Proud Galleries and the Electric Ballroom respectively, while an entire street in Camden was filled with crowds watching Odd Future climb up the speaker stacks and perform their set on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage from there.

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Watch NME cover star Tyler, The Creator talk to us on the set of our cover shoot with the musician.

We also caught up with Johnny Borrell – of Razorlight fame – to talk about the return of the band this summer. He revealed that the new members in the group make it feel “like a new band”. He said: “It reminds me of starting out but with three or four albums of material which is fun. It’s great because you can use your back catalogue, you’ll play a show and realise you haven’t performed ‘Golden Touch’ yet and you can use it.”

The band headlined the Sunday night, playing the after show party at the Electric Ballroom, and hundreds of fans queued down the street to try and get in.